近日，我院云山领军学者李形教授在《南华早报》中发表题为《An internally split Europe can never fully engage China and Asia》的文章。
文章认为，“布鲁塞尔效应”确实存在，但欧洲对美国的战略从属同样不容忽视。对中国和亚洲而言，这意味着必须以务实态度推进对欧洲交往。
An internally split Europe can never fully engage China and Asia
When contemporary Europe engages with the world, it increasingly presents as two distinct Europes operating within the same institutional framework. This duality – a Europe of strategic dependence vs a Europe of normative assertion – creates a contradiction.
For partners, particularly in China and across Asia, this is not merely an abstract identity crisis but a practical geopolitical puzzle that complicates engagement and challenges assumptions about Europe’s global role.
One Europe, embedded within Nato and the US-led transatlantic security architecture, anchors its survival to American military power and strategic priorities. This “Nato Europe” has internalised a position of security dependence, solidified through decades of integrated defence planning, intelligence sharing and military procurement tied to Washington. Its strategic subordination means its positions on critical issues – from technological competition, trade and tariff issues, and sanctions policy to the Taiwan question – are often structurally pre-aligned with US objectives.
The other “sociopolitical” Europe sees itself as a post-militarist, normative power. It projects influence through regulatory standards, values-based diplomacy and regulated capitalism, positioning itself as a moral and civilisational counterpoint to American unilateralism and other global models.
From the vantage point of China and Asia, Europe’s internal split translates into tangible challenges for cooperation. First, it creates a credibility deficit. When “sociopolitical Europe” advocates for a rules-based international order, champions multilateralism or criticises other powers’ internal affairs, its moral authority is undercut by the reality of “Nato Europe”.
The credibility of advocating for strategic autonomy or principled engagement is significantly undermined when final security sovereignty is entrusted to the United States, whose strategic objectives, especially towards China, are fundamentally confrontational.
For China and Asia, this renders European normative rhetoric selective and instrumental, seen less as a universal principle and more as an extension of a US-centric geopolitical framework. Europe’s tendency to lecture the world on values while outsourcing its security erodes its stature as an independent pole.
Second, this duality frustrates strategic and economic engagement with China. China-Europe relations are pulled in opposing directions. On one hand, the economic logic of deep interdependence and normative Europe’s interest in global governance encourage partnership. On the other, the security logic of “Nato Europe” injects suspicion and imposes alignment on containment policies.
This results in inconsistent, fragmented policies, where economic cooperation in green technology or infrastructure is undermined by political pressure on supply chain “de-risking” or hi-tech sanctions. For China, it raises a critical question: is it dealing with a sovereign Europe pursuing its interests, or a subordinate actor executing a strategy scripted elsewhere?
Third, for Asia and the Global South, Europe’s predicament highlights the risks of over-reliance on an external security guarantor. Many Asian nations carefully navigate between major powers, valuing strategic autonomy and refusing to choose sides. Europe serves as a cautionary example of how deep security integration can erode policy independence and constrain the ability to shape one’s destiny.
Furthermore, as Europe redirects resources to meet US demands for higher defence spending, its capacity for developmental investment, infrastructure partnerships and economic engagement in Asia – key pillars of its promised Indo-Pacific strategy – weakens. Europe risks becoming a less relevant economic partner for Asia, even as it seeks a greater geopolitical role.
Sociopolitical Europe’s self-image as a “third force” is, from an Asian and Chinese perspective, an illusion. It is, in practice, a normative-economic power operating within a security and geopolitical order defined and guaranteed by the US.
Its regulatory power, exemplified by the “Brussels effect”, is real but exists in a separate domain from hard security. In an era of intensifying great-power competition, this separation is unsustainable; normative influence untethered from strategic autonomy lacks ultimate weight.
Therefore, China and Asian partners increasingly adopt a pragmatic, composite approach to Europe. Engagement is becoming issue-specific and segmented. Cooperation may proceed robustly on climate change, digital governance or multilateral trade issues where normative Europe has agency.
However, on matters touching core US strategic interests – security architecture, military alignment or technology containment – engagement is cautious, anticipating the overwhelming pull of “Nato Europe”. This compartmentalisation reflects a rational adaptation.
For example, Europe responded with caution to the recent US military action in Venezuela, opting for “diplomatic” statements over explicit condemnation, while simultaneously responding more assertively towards the US talk of “annexing” Greenland for security.
The gap between Europe’s normative emphasis on Ukraine’s sovereignty and its reluctance to challenge a dominant ally highlights the divide between Europe’s security-dependent and norms-assertive faces. This duality undermines Europe’s credibility and strategic autonomy, especially in the eyes of China and Asia, who see inconsistent application of principles when great power interests are at stake.
Europe’s future as a global actor hinges on its ability to reconcile its two selves. It must choose between remaining a strategically dependent entity whose normative voice rings hollow or undertaking the arduous journey towards genuine strategic sovereignty that would give weight to its civilisational ambitions.
For China and Asia, this means managing relations with Europe with clear-eyed pragmatism. Europe will not be treated as a monolithic third force but as a complex, sometimes contradictory, composite actor.
The goal is not to push Europe to choose sides but to engage constructively where interests align, while hedging against the constraints imposed by its transatlantic security bondage. The responsibility for resolving its dilemma lies in Europe. Until it does, its partners in the East and Global South will continue to navigate the two Europes with calibrated and realistic expectations.
文章来源：《南华早报》
发布日期：2025年1月16日
